Kids from big families may be less likely to succeed

A study by researchers Chinhui Juhn and C. Andrew
Zuppann of the University of Houston, along with Yona
Rubinstein of the London School of Economics, suggests that the
more children a family has, the less likely those children will
have a good life.

"Using a variety of approaches we have documented a significant
trade-off between quantity and quality of children for NLSY
mothers and their children," their new study said. "On average,
children in larger families have lowered parental investment and
worse cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes."

Using data from 1986 to 2012 taken by the National Longitudinal
Survey of Youth and by the Children and Young Adult Survey, the
researchers were able to match the number and timing of births
into a family to a number of mental and behavioral traits.

Additionally, they were able to measure parental engagement with
children, such as time spent with each child.

They found that in families with more children, parents engaged
with each child less. This corresponded with higher likelihoods
of poor outcomes for the kids.

"Our fixed effect estimates indicate that the arrival of a
younger sibling reduces measures of parental investment as well
as cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes of older children by
approximately one-tenth of a standard deviation," the researchers
said.

Leave it at one.Shutterstock

The effects were different for girls and boys. Whereas girls
typically saw a larger negative effect on cognitive
abilities, boys had worse outcomes behaviorally.

On top of that, the researchers found that over time children
didn't grow out of the negative effects.

"Not only do we fail to find evidence that the impact is
transitory, effects appear to substantially worsen over the
longer run," they said. "Test scores and parental investments are
both worse over the longer horizon than in the short run. Only in
behavioral problems do we find that the effects may dissipate
over the longer run."

Additionally, economic well being of the mother and even the
mother's intelligence, as measured by the Armed Forces
Qualification Test, were seen as potential factors in the
outcomes.

"High AFQT mothers of all races appear to face less of a
trade-off than mothers with low AFQT scores," the study said.
"Differences in mother's AFQT scores are correlated with a wide
set of lifestyle differences that could explain these
differences. For instance, having worse child care coverage,
maternity policies, or flexibility in household labor supply
could all make the presence of an additional child more
detrimental to other children in the household."

Though the researchers warn that further study would be needed to
make a causal link between any of these factors to the worse
outcomes, the correlations between the number of children and
negative life outcomes were significant.

Based on the study, it seems that contrary to the popular saying,
more may not be merrier.